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Thursday, 24 January 2019

Prepare for the tsunami - " An ungovernable tumult roiling with rage"

There can hardly be anyone left who believes that Brexit is just about the EU. It has come as a shock to the Patrician establishment that all this .. hostility .. to everything they hold dear has come out of left field, and 'Remain' is coming to mean not only remain in the clutches of the Federation, but to remain in a Britain ruled by this scabrous elite.

They write about 'State Capture' - the process by which the Patrician elite have progressively taken over the State -

"Here are different kinds of political ice cream for sale, but when
licked they all turn out to have roughly the same unpalatable taste: a
bland, socially progressive, anti-traditionalist, globalist, corporatist
flavour."

"... At the same time a technocratic political elite has arisen that is
willing to contract out decision-making to supranational organisations
like the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and United
Nations on just about everything from finance, the law, border security,
and the environment."

"With the rise of the new political classes, a different political
dynamic is emerging. Drawn from similar backgrounds (often middle-class,
university educated, with little prior career experience outside
politics itself), members of parliament increasingly sound alike, think
alike and act alike. The evolution of a monochrome political
establishment is producing a radical disconnect, which the Brexit
denouement is throwing into stark relief. What we appear to be
witnessing is the corrupt mutation of the notion of the representation
of the people in parliament, into the substitution of the will of the people by the interests of the political class. We are entering the realms, no less, of state capture."

Well, we won't have it. We want our Parliament back, our democracy back, our public administration back, our schools and universities back and an independent unshackled media free to speak. But just what will it take? Will we spawn a domestic Gilets jaunes movement? And this is where I have difficulties. I deprecate violence and disorder. I hate riots. I can never advocate such action except in the case of foreign invasion, for the preservation of our realm. And yes, I can anticipate your responses. The profs go on to say

"Cumulatively, over the past three decades, then, the empirically
demonstrable lesson is that violence and threats work. Crudely, there is
simply no arguing with the fact that violence is the deus ex machina
for changing the way people think and act. Physical force is a method
of political communication, and when it is sustained it invariably
succeeds in changing minds and changing policies.

Under the threat
of violence, it is often easier for governments to knuckle under for
the sake of maintaining a semblance of peace, to wax piously about
societal cohesion and resilience, and to climb onwards as though the status quo ante
were not crumbling beneath them. The progressive factions of academia,
culture, and media cheer them for it. So, if the populace don't really
react in the face of such threats and actual violence, and merely light
candles and hug teddy bears, then the bet of the political classes is
sustained. They have gambled correctly."

And here in intense self-examination I ask whether writing this blog is on the candle-lighting and teddy bear-hugging side of the spectrum, or on the side on which thirteen Gilets jaunues have already been blinded by State munitions? But then this blog is utterly irrelevant in the face of the tsunami about to engulf Britain, a crashing mass of reform that will sweep away the deep ordure from the Augean stables our nation has become. Betz and Smith write

"But we are expert on these matters. We have for decades studied why
things fall apart, how a stable, essentially self-policing, productive
society can turn into an ungovernable tumult roiling with rage. We know
that this happens at first very slowly, a creep-creep-creeping to the
limit; and then very fast indeed after the limit has been passed. We
also know that no amount of free beer and pizza parties will swiftly
return a society deranged by the shattering of the social contract by
its own elite back to normality."

Should Parliament betray Brexit, that limit could be passed next week.

Please be very careful in the comments.

David Betz is Professor of the War in the Modern World, Department of War Studies at King's College London. MLR Smith is Professor of Strategic Theory and Head of Department, Department of War Studies, King's College London.
=============================Apols to those expecting the HRA today - I'm holding this over

60 comments:

Well I am still hoping that they will see sense, they always have done before, barring the civil war, TPTB have a masterclass in pushing the plebs just so far.

The difference with this situation, is that they know that they have disarmed us, and they know that we have become diluted, indeed London has been cut off from the rest of the nation, Scotland was always like an appendix. With that knowledge, along with a younger generation that has been imbued into the cult, like the moonies of yesteryear, they might just think that they have carte blanche.

I suggest that as arms, we force ourselves to be exposed to at least one BBC news programme a day until the end of March, by that time we will be baying for blood.

Pat, I don't know who you are and I never look at who links to me, but you're reading straight off the script; sadly, this process of reform will sever many such pre-existing links. But thanks for your past readership, and I wish you all the best for your future.

@Pat: Raedwald may like (many of us do) rhetorical flourish, but I think he is correct in detecting a dangerous groundswell.

I'm reading a potted history of the English Civil Wars and there are points of similarity between the 1630s/1640s and now: arrogant and slippery Government, discontent with the system of representation in Parliament, multiple ideological fracture lines in the populace.

Charles thought he could dodge round it all and carry on. Our current political establishment seems to think it can do so, also.

In 2016 the Government could have said, decision made; we shall implement it, negotiate a sensible settlement with the EU in the interests of the country as a whole, and assiduously seek to reunite the people as we go forward.

We don't "do" riots very well in this country. We leave that to the more excitable of our continental neighbours and I don't think it will be may years before there are IRA-style organisations operating all across southern Europe. But not here, so the response to the Establishment's betrayal of the Brexit Referendum won't be immediately visible. But the fury will grow and will be manifested in a Parliament that has no democratic legitimacy as millions ignore the LibLabCON and vote for insurgency parties, or refuse to vote altogether.

And whilst we may be forced to fund the BBC, we can't be forced to watch, or listen to it.

I place my faith in The Beginnings by Rudyard Kipling. I don't think we've changed so very much from the people he wrote about.It was not part of their blood,It came to them very lateWith long arrears to make good, When the English began to hate.

They were not easily moved, They were icy-willing to wait Till every count should be proved, Ere the English began to hate.

Their voices were even and low, Their eyes were level and straight. There was neither sign nor show, When the English began to hate.

It was not preached to the crowd, It was not taught by the State. No man spoke it aloud, When the English began to hate.

It was not suddenly bred, It will not swiftly abate, Through the chill years ahead, When Time shall count from the date That the English began to hate.

Those who squeal loudest against the "patrician" or "nanny state" want EXACTLY that.

E.g they demand a weekly omni-refuse collection, just because they haven't the gumption to work out what should be recycled and what not.

They expect teachers miraculously to educate their kids, when they have hammered into them, that the only thing that matters is how a given football side are doing, or what Katie Price's baby is called.

I'm not quite so ready to think there is a *general* state of rage. The 'contract' between the English and Parliament is that the English won't rebel if Parliament doesn't incite rebellion by its acts. Or Acts.

I *do* think there is a general state of disappointment with Parliament - they asked for our direction and they have failed to deliver. Such inadequate performance will be punished at the next General Election, but I rather expect that the English, white van man etc., will start being stubborn rather than rioting. "You have let me down, now see how I respond." Caretakers choosing not to be available for extra work, People paying governmental bills in the final reminder. Convoys of white van men/taxis/lorries rolling along at exactly the speed limit. Suppliers choosing not to renew contracts with government, or insisting on payment strictly according to the Terms and Conditions. People not paying TV licences. No more automatic deference to the BBC or NHS...

I don't know if the Scots, Welsh or people in Northern Ireland will feel the same, but a grudge-holding Englishman could affect the political climate for years to come.

They are free to write about the current debacle now but prefer to spend their time on tittle tattle. Today we have lightweight drivel about brexit - bif, bam, speedboat devils, shot puppies and Princess Di.

The British are too gutless and complacent to rise up. They would prefer the Froggies to do it for them.

The "free" press would round on yellow vests in this country and the plebs would want the pigs armed and firing live rounds asap, so they could get back to corrie, slebdancin' and some fat bird warbling.

DJ. Apart from WVM most Leave voters were retired. Those in high-value employment were a small sector only.

So a work-to-rule or among them would be limited in its impact.

The reverse is true of Remain voters, on the other hand.

But the implication that for 17.4 million people the UK's Leaving the EU is an all-consuming obsession is ridiculous anyway. Yes, there's a minority of nutters amongst them, and some are truly nasty, but most will probably just shrug their shoulders or roll their eyes as usual.

You can start Radders by blanking snearing scum Anon and Remainiac Pat. The remain gang are increasingly desperate and it shows. Tough on mental cases and traitors but there it is.

OF COURSE NO ONE ADVOCATES VIOLENCE. But massive civil unrest and the end of the Tory Party are at hand and likely Labour too thanks to Jiz being so stupid as to betray Brexit by wanting a WORSE deal even than the arch-traitor May.

Well I do not think revolution is in the air yet. When Brexit is scuppered a lot of people will use the next election to protest and hopefully a lot of fat cats will be ejected. I think what happens after that is going to be interesting, because if things like the democratic deficit in the EU, the junking of large parts of society, the subsidy of Scotland etc are going to become sticking points. I can see a groundswell to reject the Barnet formula, it has nothing to do with Brexit but it robs the English and Welsh and the SNP cannot keep quiet. As the establishment likes Barnet people will vote it down just because they can. You can see the time coming when the PM, whoever they may be, will not be able to leave London without an armed guard and when MPs hide in Westminster, terrified of the people.

Sounds fun to me.The only solution that I can see is a couple of new parties, pragmatic left and right so that people can vote for somebody who represents them. Old style con,lab will become like the liberals today, a self important annoyance.

I agree with DiscoveredJoys - the British people don't generally resort to riot; more that they go inside and close the front door.

There are dangerous roads ahead though - the polarisation of our country verges to the extremes, with both sides feeling that they are on solid ground.

On this point of the unelected and distant bodies - e.g. the UN - there is a considerable section of society who believe that governance should be given over to such bodies; and they are as convinced of their argument as we are of our liberal, national representative democracy.

It would be a pity if the only result of people's disillusionment is that people walk away from politics all together - my instinct is that we need to create more diversity in political representation in the form of new political parties.

As a self-confessed pacifist and keyboard warrior I have surprised myself by puchasing a yellow vest on the basis of the utter ANGER that is building within me over the way we are being railroaded by traitors.

I've always considered myself to be a pretty good representation of what is 'average', particularly politically, and find that my own thoughts, actions and motives tend to reflect the majority - Mr Average as I said.

So if "I" am this aggreived by what's happening then I automatically assume others will be feeling the same way - and there are a lot of 'Mr Averages' out there, let alone those that have yet stronger feelings on the issues.

@Anon - omni refuse collection?

We pay to have our bins emptied. There are better methods than getting people to (ridiculously) sort plastics so our local Government can profit from free labour.

Collect it en-masse, sort it at proper machine-equipped warehouses and BURN the stuff that can't be recycled for the energy we so desperately need. Locally produced energy. Simple. Common sense.

The real, materially-relevant anger is on the other side, as the explosion in Derry reveals. I wonder who supplied the explosive? As my late father used to say "you can't have too many friends, but you can have one too many enemies"

We don't go in for rioting in this country and I for one am glad we don't.

UKIP and the referendum party (remember them? I shudder to think what sort of hell we'd be in had we been conned into the euro), politically, in terms of seats gained, were irrelevant.

But we aren't in the Euro, we've had a referendum and have voted to leave. In 9 weeks we will have left. We are in this happy position through the arrogance, hubris and stupidity of the remain establishment.

Would rioting or yellow vest type protests have helped. Given how the MSM, manipulates even the most innocuous expressions of opposition, I would posit not.

What are their options, these clever, clever people. Well we know their chosen one - total and abject surrender. Given our bovine passivity, why haven't they done it?

All they can do is to try and bodge May's deal to try and get it through. Again why haven't they done it.

The EU has to agree and I for one don't believe they can offer any actual concessions whatsoever. Is there any actual time for to do anything anyway?So we have delays, cancelling Brexit second referendum etc. Well I can see well honed back up plans being activated there! Again, are any of these realistic?

Rioting? Certainly not! As a well known Italian once said "never interrupt your enemies when they're making a mistake(s)"

Anyway, don’t put too much faith in the latest IRA iteration. They are not too smart.

I doubt if you would know, but I do as I did four tours, PIRA would phone the local Samaritans to advise of an IED. The Samaritans would pass this on to RUC and RUC on to SF base. SF was would RV with ATO, set up a cordon and deal with it (still with me, snowflake?).

On this occasion the Derry amateurs phoned Samaritans but didn’t realise it was a national line and their call was automatically dished out to some volunteer somewhere between Inverness and Penzance who wouldn’t know Derry from Dunstable.

Hence the Big Bang before PSNI and SF could do anything about it. That would not have been the terrorists desired outcome.

I wonder if they're planning a spectacular Billy? Canary Wharfe alone cost over a billion. Then there was Ian Gow, Airey Neve, Ross McWhirter and Viscount Mountbatten. Brighton was a close call for some too. If they are thinking of picking the odd one off, then who would you think it might be?

Pat - your pathetic. jejune and credulous efforts to threaten us with being bombed really won't work, you know. I was just walking down to Platform 4 at London Bridge when the bomb went off there, and used to walk past the Natwest Tower and lovely little St Ethelburgas twice a day during the week - but they blew that one up on a Saturday. We didn't lose a day's work or a night's sleep at the height of the campaign and I doubt your threats will frighten us now.

Well, I can trump that Radders having had intimate contact with an ied placed on the doorstep of a house on the Ardoyne interface in August 1976. Myself and my 2i/c blown about 20ft. God knows how we survived. My ears are still ringing.

Not a bit of it, but a peace accord was negotiated for good reason. It was all becoming a bit of a pain. The Leave fanatics seem happy to go back to that, indeed, to war on any level with anyone. Not many share their madness, fortunately. Whatever, some snow, some flakes eh?

This is the Remainer endgame. May's deal is now "The Deal". Brexit is now "crashing out with No Deal"' The fact that this "deal" is merely a withdrawal agreement and not a deal as to a future relationship is camouflaged. In a little while - late February is my guess - enough of Project Fear 2 will have transpired that it will be considered safe for "the backstop" to be watered down to such an extent that May declares victory and the HoC votes it through. Thus Brexit is thwarted but you'd have to be awake to see or hear it. The difficulty I see in this is that our MP class of thwarters seem to think that they are parliament and that they are sovereign. Well, they ain't.

NB An explosion in NI? Cui bono?

NB2 Cromwell: "A few honest men are better than numbers." Judge Dread: "I am The Law".

Spookily I wrote a blog on the same subject yesterday: https://delphiusdebate.blogspot.com/2019/01/inequality.html

There is an unwritten rule that we vote people from all walks of life with an agreement that once voted into office they will generally carry out the will of the majority of people, but most importantly will not act against that majority. Even though Parliament these days works on party lines rather than elected representatives working in the interest of their constituents, this still holds true because we also vote on party lines. The party elected into power enact their policies and the majority are happy.

What is happening at the moment is a total breakdown of that compact between voters and Parliament. The people voted by a substantial majority to leave the EU. It was a clear directive. But Parliament have taken it upon themselves to say very vocally that the people are wrong. In direct conflict with the democratic vote, Politicians are attempting to subvert and in some cases completely ignore that directive. This is unprecedented.

The clamouring from Davos recently about ignoring the democratic will of the people only serves to show where those voices are coming from, who really has the ears of Parliament.

I cannot but think this will end badly. There will be protests. Large ones, possibly violent ones.

In such circumstances would the leave voters in the Police search their consciences and fail to quell such protests. If called in, would the leave voters in the Army do the same? The same Army lambasted across the ranks because a few raw recruits posed for pictures with Tommy Robinson?

Would those people asked to work against the majority look inside themselves and break ranks?

All I know is that historically, to release these sorts of tensions, we resort to elections. Whether a new election would change things I don't know. Unless the majority start to vote for someone other than the main parties in ward-winning numbers, I doubt it will change.

Anonymous, it hasn't quite got to the point yet that the people are riled up into action. It's also a British trait to give someone the benefit of the doubt and not act until things really are past the pale.

But... if Parliament does completely ignore the people and stays in the EU, there will be trouble. Polls show even remainers understand that they lost and the government should enact the will of the majority.

The Referendum provided by Parliament was a choice of Remain or Leave only. There were no pre-conditions for Leave - no necessity for a deal before we left. There was a pre-condition for Remain - Cameron's renegotiated deal.

The UK is only "in" the EU because we have signed up to the EU treaties. Therefore we can only Leave by leaving (abrogating) the EU treaties (and obviously not signing back up to EU treaties). Just because Remains have re-defined Leave (in their minds) as partial Remain doesn't make it true.

Democracy (demos=people, kratos=power) makes the people sovereign, not Parliament. If the establishment cancels Leave and implements some form of Remain, then voting becomes worthless. People voted in the GDR but their establishment permitted only the result they wanted. Like ours, apparently. And, inevitably, where democracy is denied violence ensues.

Raedwald, I read all your posts but this is my first comment. I have left the following self-explanatory comment on the Bruges Group piece:

Thank you for your first-rate analysis of the situation.

I came to this via Raedwald; your piece was the starting point for his post:https://raedwald.blogspot.com/2019/01/prepare-for-tsunami-ungovernable-tumult.html

I consider myself to be an ordinary Englishman, someone who wishes nothing more for his children and grandchildren than a peaceful and prosperous future in the UK. I take an average interest in politics; I vote at every election and voted in the referendum. I am appalled at the contemptuous intransigence and arrogance of those now nakedly attempting to subvert the will of the people. If my ire is so raised, I shudder to think of the effect on hotter heads.

I would like to think that those working to frustrate our independence would find your analysis sobering. However, I suspect that they would never deign to read it, let alone consider its implications. As your piece so ably sets out, the concern is that no good will come of this.

Anon said: "Anything ... is Leave ...". No, Leave is not "anything" you deem it to be just to suit what you want.

The option on the ballot paper was "Leave the European Union". That can only be accomplished by actually leaving the EU treaties - the very treaties which legally make the UK part of the EU in the first place.

Fairly obviously if the UK remains signed up to the existing treaties, or signs up to new EU treaties, we remain under the control of the EU, even if slightly less than currently. And remaining in the EU, even partly, clearly isn't leaving it.

Anon, The vote was to leave or remain. There doesn't need to be a further vote on the post-exit relationship. That was already decided based on the information presented prior to the referendum.

Every remainer "warned" us that we would leave the customs union, the single market and the ECJ and we voted on that basis. Nobody said that we'd have to give the losing side concessions, because they thought the losing side would be the leavers.

By slagging off NATO I presume you are of a far-left persuasion. Fair enough. There have been instances where NATO has been subverted (by the US re: Libya) and the EU (re: The Balkans) but that's a prime example of what can happen when an organisation is politically unaccountable. Like the EU. If you hate NATO, you should in all fairness hate the EU too, especially if it (as it has signalled it wishes to do) gains control of force projection.

My point is, that in the modern, international world, all agreements, be they with those, or the UN, on the environment, WTO, IMF, nuclear weapons control, extradition, etc. involve a sharing of sovereignty.

You single out those with the EU for obsessive, neurotic scrutiny, but not the rest.

When the UK leaves the EU, it leaves all its institutions - implying disaster - as Cameron warned. That's a simple fact, NOT a promise.

There was NO vote on what steps the UK should then take to protect itself from those effects in relation to any other entity.

Parliament will rightly ignore your screaming that there was, therefore.

PS, a fair chunk, maybe even most of the Leave voters haven't a clue what the Single Market, ECJ or Customs Union are.

They voted Leave because they were bigoted, gullible half-wits, terrified by Farage's Project Fear "breaking point" poster, threatening that they would be engulfed by Middle-Eastern males, and the rest.

Anon. I think the replies you've had in this and other threads show that the posters with whom you disagree understand the single market, ECJ and Customs union rather better than you do.

We know you can speak three languages and spend a lot of time among the fine people of Europe. If you get on with them like a house on fire, if they think and understand as you do, well I can't think of a better reason to leave!

As to the UN, IMF and so on, we've contracted out decision-making, not sovereignty. They're not the same. The EU was the only supernational body that wanted - and still wants - the sovereignty of its subject nations. And we want to take back decision-making, too

The UN is deeply flawed, institutionally corrupt, and a mechanism for keeping in power third world despots, tyrants and failures such as Sr Maduro; without the UN, they would more easily crumble, saving lives, suffering and national failure. It wasn't orginally so. The United Nations were those nations opposing the fascist and imperial Axis - US, Britain, USSR, China, France.

Given that the EU "rubber-stamping" Parliament refused to rubber-stamp TTIP - on grounds of its destroying member states' sovereignty - what do you think a US-UK trade deal would involve the UK taking where it hurts?

The ommission of NATO wasn't meaningful. NATO's fundamental mission is Collective Defence - an attack on one nation is an attack on all. Plus the Crisis Management imperatives that drive on-conventional aggression. It is a body of sovereign indepedent nations acting collectively - surely you know this?

It's very different from the provocation of a ragtag 'EU army' with one of the EU's many presidents no doubt leading the charge in his little tank ...

For every one like you David, I guess that there were several as I describe.

Otherwise, why was it worth the Leave campaign's splashing out on all the disgusting posters?

To answer Tony Benn's questions though, Jean Claude Juncker has little personal power. He chairs the Commission, and that is answerable to the topmost authority, the European Union Council of the twenty-eight Heads Of Governments. In turn, all proposals by the Commission have to be approved by votes, both among our MEPs, and among another entity, the Council Of Ministers. Each member state appoints those, and the UK gets the largest, population-weighted share of QMV ones in that Council along with only Germany, France, and Italy too. The Commission can issue directives, for specific applications of the the laws once they have been approved, however, much as UK ministers can make rules under ours at a national level.

@Anon - Where does the implication of 'disaster' by leaving the EU come from?

Was the UKs position disasterous BEFORE the creation of the EU?

All we have seen or heard about are scaremongering pronouncements and 'official' declarations produced from obviously biased sources.

The media carefully avoid interviewing anyone that disproves the alarmist agenda yet, happily and amusingly, they still get caught out like when Sky TV interviewed the boss of WTO who disparaged all scaremongering comments and positively welcomed the prospect of the UK rejoining. And the Tory MP on QT last night that similarly discounted such alrmist tactics.

All scares and financial predictions are to be held with suitable cynicism - from either side - but no country ever 'failed' when all they wanted to do was trade with the world.

Every senior EU official must be approved by a majority of our MEPs, who themselves are elected by Proportional Representation. They must also meet the approval of the Council of Ministers (the member countries own, that is) and of the European Council, of the leaders from the twenty-eight democracies, the EUs supreme authority.

On the other hand, the PM of this country was not first decided by the electorate. She was not chosen by Parliament either. She was not even selected by the ordinary Tory Party members. The shortlist was chosen by the 1922 Committee of the Tory Party on advice from the Board, and the parliamentary party basically went with that. The irony of the EU-hatuing whimperers, with their endless squeaking about a lack of democracy in the EU sadly escapes them it appears.

It will be the same again next time, but this one has at least scraped through a General Election.

These people are selected/appointed to office/power for however long they wish to be; much like Mr Stalin, Mr Mao or Mr Hitler, they cannot be removed by any Democratic process. Unlike the present Prime Minister who, if the people are not happy with her, come the next GE, can if they wish remove her.Democracy works both ways, we can elect people to office, but more importantly we can remove them, peacefully.If a ‘President’ cannot be removed democratically, then it is not Democracy.

at 13:10 Mark The Skint Sailor Makes a small but extremely important point. A point that seems to be over shadowed and easily missed under endless arguments being put forward by remain. Endless and needless arguments. Before the referendum we were snowed under with fear porn, day after day it never stopped. Yet. We. Voted. To. Leave.The leave voters had taken into account all the fear porn and still voted out. Out with a no deal clean break. It's really as simple as that. All else is simple obstruction.

How serious is the threat of civil war?Serious enough for MI5 and Special Branch to have internet trolls in their pay pop up on every blog discussing it to divert the conversation, hijack threads and generally follow the official and long documented Internet Trolls Guide On How To Derail Threads.The unrest is real and growing.